Use of this site indicates your agreement to the Terms of Service (updated 08/09/2001).

Pilot training
Suspected hijackers took lessons
Novice can steer a large jet plane, instructor says

By Joel J. Smith, and Charlie Ramirez / The Detroit News

Chris Cook / Associated Press Rudy Dekkers, owner of Huffman Aviation in Venice, Fla., speaks in front of one of the planes used to train two suspected in Tuesday's attacks. Comment on this story Send this story to a friend Get Home Delivery

   ANN ARBOR -- Pilots trained to fly small, single-engine airplanes could easily maneuver a large Boeing 757 or 767 passenger jet once it was airborne and flying level, aviation experts said.
   At least four of the suspected hijackers who crashed commercial airliners Tuesday into New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., were believed to have received single-engine pilot training. At least two of them were trained a year ago at a Florida flight school.
   "Once you are in the air and all you want to do is go up, down, left and right, it wouldn't be much of a problem," said Charles W. Kaufman, professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Michigan. "Those planes are intentionally easy to fly.
   "You don't need to be a multi-engine rated (jet) pilot to hit the World Trade Center on a clear day. They probably saw the Trade Center from 50 miles away."
   He said they might have had a problem if the weather was poor and visibility limited. But the weather conditions Tuesday were perfect.
   FBI agents early Wednesday went to Huffman Aviation in Venice, Fla., to inquire about two former students who took pilot training in July 2000.
   According to a former Huffman employee, Charlie Voss, who was interviewed by the FBI, the agents identified them as being involved in the World Trade Center attacks.
   Voss said the men, who he knew as Mohamed Atta and Marwan, actually lived with his family for several days as a favor to Huffman Aviation during the training sessions.
   The pair told him they were from Germany. Voss said he ordered the two to leave his house after a few days because his wife didn't trust them.
   The FBI found a car at Boston's Logan Airport registered to the two men. Two of the four hijacked airliners departed from Boston.
   Inside the car was an aircraft manual written in Arabic.
   "They all have the same controls," said William McCoy, a flight instructor at American Flight at Oakland County International Airport in Waterford Township. "It's not all that complicated. Whether it's a 152 or a 747, it's pretty much all the same."
   "In my mind, it's not that much of a stretch to go from a small plane to a jet."
   The FBI searched an apartment in Coral Springs, Fla., early Wednesday that Atta listed on his driver's license. The agents also searched a half a dozen other Florida residences during the day.
   Federal officials suspected from the start that terrorist pilots were at the controls when the planes slammed into the twin Trade Center towers and the Pentagon.
   They couldn't believe that any commercial airline pilot, even at gunpoint, would deliberately fly into an occupied building.

Detroit News wire services also contributed to this report.
You can reach Joel Smith at (313) 222-2556 or jsmith@detnews.com.